Carl Frampton v Horacio Garcia Betting Preview

Carl Frampton will be hoping to bounce back from the only loss of his professional career when he meets Horacio Garcia for a 10-round fight at the SSE Arena in Belfast this Saturday 18 November. Frampton lost his fight against Leo Santa Cruz by majority decision back in January, and whilst the bookmakers have made the Belfast-born featherweight the severely odds-on favourite to beat Garcia, the Mexican will no doubt view the blot on his opponent’s form book as evidence that he has at least a chance to cause a big upset. So how do the two fighters compare, and where should bettors look for the best value?

Form

Colin ‘The Jackal’ Frampton had expected to bounce back from his January defeat at the hands of Leo Santa Cruz by facing Andres ‘Jaguar’ Gutierrez in July, but that fight was called off after Frampton first weighed in 1lb over and then Gutierrez slipped in the shower and injured himself. The British number one has since parted ways with his previous manager, Barry McGuigan, and is now with Frank Warren. The coming match against Garcia is intended to prepare the way for a world title fight in 2018, and Frampton will come here with 23 wins and a single loss to his credit. He has won a total of 14 fights by KO or TKO, and has fought 152 rounds, for an average of 6.33 rounds per fight.

Horacio ‘Violento’ Garcia, at 27 years of age, is three years younger than 30-year-old Frampton, but has fought more fights at a professional level, with 33 wins, 3 losses and 1 draw. All of his losses have been arrived at by unanimous decision, and 24 of his wins were achieved by KO or TKO. Garcia will come here on the back of a TKO victory over Diuhl Olguin at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in September, and that followed a loss to the same fighter two months earlier. Garcia has fought 196 bouts over his 37 matches, for an average of 5.29 rounds per fight.

Sports.net’s View

As we said in our opening comments, the bookmakers have Carl Frampton installed at the very short-priced favourite to win this match, but whilst Frampton’s record is impressive, we aren’t sure that they are impressive enough to warrant the paltry odds available. Frampton’s camp requested this fight to be restricted to 10 rounds due to him having had a difficult year, and he hasn’t tasted victory since July 2016, when he beat Leo Santa Cruz in their first fight together.

For bettors looking for reasons to oppose Frampton, there is a lot to like about Garcia. The Mexican is three years younger, has fought more rounds, has a lower round-per-fight average, has a higher percentage of wins by KO or TKO, stands an inch taller and has a reach that is three inches longer. Given those facts, a bet on an outright win by Frampton is fairly easy to argue against, and we would therefore be inclined to look for much better value elsewhere.

Frampton is the British number one, and a former world champion in both the super-bantamweight and featherweight divisions, so we won’t seek value by opposing him. Instead, we will take a punt on the match making it beyond five rounds, and bet on either fighter winning in rounds 6 to 10.

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